Battle For The Cowl: An Alternate Take (Part 3)
by shanehagadorn
Summary: The final, and incomplete, chapter of my alternate version of BFTC...


**PAGE 1**

1 – Open on ROBIN battling it out with FIREFLY as the Wayne Corp docks burn in the background.

FIREFLY

Every secret will be ours!

ROBIN

(Caption)

What secret is Lynns talking about?

2 – Robin catching Firefly with a kick to the face…

FIREFLY

Everything you hide! Everything you want kept in the dark!

ROBIN

(Caption)

What would he go to this trouble for?

3 – Robin letting a batarang fly….

FIREFLY

All your identities will burn!

ROBIN

(Caption)

Identities?

4 – Close on Robin's face as a realization sets in.

ROBIN

(Caption)

Oh $%^&

5 – Close on a batarang slicing through one of the lines connecting Firefly's gauntlets to the tanks on his back

6 – A burst of flame sprays out of the cut hose…

FIREFLY

You stupid #$%…you'll burn us both alive!

**PAGE 2**

1 – Close up as the butt of Robin's staff flies into the face of Firefly.

2 – Robin shoots a line around the legs of Firefly…

ROBIN

Just you Garfield…

3 – Robin leaps, flames shoot just past him, as he catches Firefly with a knee to the chin, cracking his helmet

ROBIN

It would serve you right…

4 – Robin slams an elbow into Firefly's ribs…

ROBIN

…if I let you burn.

5 – Robin reaches behind Firefly…

ROBIN

But that would just be…

6 – Close on Robin's hand shutting off the feed to the remaining gauntlet…

7 – Robin pops a vial of knockout gas directly in front of Firefly's nostril holes…

ROBIN

…giving you exactly what you want.

**PAGE 3**

1 – Cut to the Batcave where Oracle sits at the Bat Computer, Alfred at her side, monitors all aglow with footage of police & fire activity…

ORACLE

Robin do you copy? What's the situation at the docks?

ROBIN

(Via Headset)

Firefly is down but his fires are still raging. I'll leave him for your dad, but warn the cops he's kinda naked.

2 – Cut back to an exhausted Robin, sitting on a rock, wiping the sweat off his face with one foot on the half-naked body of Firefly.

ROBIN

I wasn't going to leave him in his suit. That's just asking for trouble.

VOICE

(Off Panel)

You don't know trouble yet boy.

3 – Robin spins around to find himself face-to-face with the ELECTROCUTIONER…

ROBIN

Oracle, I'll call you back.

4 – Close on Electrocutioner's face as energy crackles in the air around him…

ELECTROCUTIONER

I wouldn't bet on it.

**PAGE 4**

1 – Cut to JASON TODD and DAMIAN as they come to rest on the rooftop of a skyscraper.

DAMIAN

And what are we going to find here…Batman?

JASON

This is where sources have led me Robin. This is where Black Mask operates from.

2 – Close on Damian's face and his bemused expression…

DAMIAN

This is one of my father's building.

3- Jason, his eyes flickering red, looks towards Damian…

JASON

I'm well aware of that fact Robin. This is also where a certain…fake…is supposedly being held.

DAMIAN

Thomas Elliott I assume you're referring to. There isn't much I don't know about my father's operations…Batman.

JASON

Enough talk. Time to get to work…

4 – Wide shot of the Wayne Tower they are sitting atop.

5 – Cut to the room in which THOMAS ELLIOTT resides. He sits on his bed, reading a book, no traces of the assault at the hands of Jason Todd are visible.

ELLIOTT

Something wicked this way comes, I feel it in my bones.

**PAGE 5**

1 – Cut back to the docks where Robin is reeling from Electrocutioner's assault.

ELECTROCUTIONER

This ain't going to end Robin. We will keep coming and coming until you break.

ROBIN

Even your best…isn't going to be enough Lester.

ELECTROCUTIONER

It isn't just me and Firefly. This is bigger than you and your creepy little clan. This is going to change it all…

2 – Close on Robin as he steels himself for battle again…

ROBIN

Nothing…will change.

3 – Back to Electrocutioner as his hand lights up, ready to blast away at Robin…

ELECTROCUTIONER

We'll see about that.

4 – Robin leaps over the head of Electrocutioner…

ROBIN

(Caption)

Firefly mentioned identity…

5 – Robin swings with his staff, Electrocutioner leaps over it….

ROBIN

(Caption)

This one's talking about change.

6 – Electrocutioner unleashes a burst that blows a hole thru Robin's cape…

ROBIN

(Caption)

If this is what I think it is…

7 – Robin stabs his "R" into the foot of Electrocutioner…

ROBIN

(Caption)

…we are in serious trouble.

8 – Robin slams his staff right into the jaw of Electrocutioner, catching him right on the sweet spot and knocking him out.

ROBIN

Oracle?

**PAGE 6**

1 – Robin, using his staff to prop himself up, stands with the flames of the dock fire in the background and blood on his mouth.

ROBIN

Oracle, we've got a potentially serious problem on our hands here. Do you copy?

2 – Close on Robin's face as his eyes roll back in his head…

ORACLE

(Via Headset)

Robin? Robin?

3 – Robin drops to the ground, a knife slid into his back, a well-dressed ZSASZ standing there with a smile on his face and a cell phone at his ear.

ZSASZ

Black Mask? I've got a special package for you.

**PAGE 7**

1 – Cut back to Jason and Damian as they enter Wayne Tower in pursuit of Black Mask.

DAMIAN

What would possess Black Mask to take residence inside my father's tower?

JASON

So there's something you don't know, Robin? Hubris. Arrogance. What better place to hide than in the place least expected? Seems like something right up your alley Damian.

2 – Close on Damian's face…

DAMIAN

What are you implying…Batman?

3 – Back to Jason as he descends the stairwell, Damian in the background behind him…

JASON

Do you expect me to believe you genuinely wanted to fit into the Wayne Family? That you wanted to change everything you were ever taught and become just like Dick?

4 – Close on Jason's face, the twinkle visible in his eye…

JASON

Just like Drake?

5 – A buzz emanates from one of Jason's pouch, his cell phone ringing. Jason touches the side of his helmet…

JASON

Simon?

**PAGE 8**

1 – Cut to Black Mask/Dr. Hurt, standing alongside Zsasz who holds a knife to the throat of an unconscious Robin.

BLACK MASK

I got a surprise for you down by the docks but I strongly suggest you get here now...

2 – Close on Zsasz as he runs the side of the blade, almost lovingly, across Robin's face

ZSASZ

(To himself)

So intimate this knife. No love like its love…

3 – Back to Black Mask…

BLACK MASK

...Unless you want to find your present in little pieces.

4 – Back to Jason…

JASON

What's wrong with your voice Simon? You're talking…strangely.

5 – Back to Black Mask…

BLACK MASK

Necessary evil my friend. Just get to the Wayne Corp docks asap before this situation gets….deadly.

6 – Black Mask folds up his phone, and turns to Zsasz.

BLACK MASK

My deepest gratitude Zsasz. This is certainly a prize worth the drive out here. And how thoughtful of you to leave him alive like I asked.

ZSASZ

Your offer is worth the trouble, but I don't know how long I can hold out. The light in his eyes is screaming to be let out. It wants to be free of the Robin's skull, it wants me to liberate it.

**PAGE 9 **

1 – TALLY MAN steps out of the driver side of the limousine…

2 – Black Mask holds up Robin's head by the chin, Zsasz licks his blade…

BLACK MASK

Sorry Zsasz, my driver apparently can't wait a few minutes more. Try not to kill the redbird here while I'm gone…

3- Close on Zsasz's face, half concealed by the blade, as he smiles at the knife...

ZSASZ

Do hurry then Black Mask. His light hurts my eyes…

**PAGE 10**

1 – Black Mask, standing with Tally Man…

BLACK MASK

What is it that could not wait until this transaction was completed?

So life got in the way of my completion of this and by the time I returned to it, I found I had lost that moment...that place in my head where the story was unfolding and despite several attempts to get back to it, I was unable to do so. I thought maybe going back over these scripts like this it would help me get back there but no such luck unfortunately.

I can still remember certain story beats I had intended to play with...I know that my version of this story was intended to run longer than the 3 issues the true Battle For The Cowl did. I always felt like 3 issues gave short shrift to what should have been a monumental story, forced it to feel rushed and that it lacked the gravity Dick's decision to take on the cape & cowl should have held. Also, I never felt like there was this feeling of Gotham actually being threatened by the absence of a Batman...it just seemed like business as usual so I wanted to put the city itself under siege.

For me the turning point for Dick, and essentially for Damian as well, was intended to begin with a sequence in which Jason would turn his guns on Damian when the young Robin refused to kill a helpless Tim Drake (that's where the Black Mask "I have a present for you" sequence was going). JT would shoot up D, truly making him irredeemable in my eyes at least, but the delay would allow TD to get his freedom.

I also had in mind a sequence that would take Dick off the map for a brief period of time and had originally written it as, in his desperate attempts to travel from one crime scene to the next as quickly as possible, ended up getting hit by the limo Black Mask/Dr. Hurt has been cruising around town in while surveying his machinations. It came off really comedic and ridiculous so I wiped it out and never got back to that point.

With Dick off the radar, along with most of the Bat-Family, I wanted JT to essentially go apeshit and kill some of the minor villains while he is cleaning up Black Mask's little crime wave. Mask's whole purpose in even starting up this crime spree has being to play JT into ruining Batman in the public eye before Mask reveals himself (as he did in Morrison's "Batman & Robin") as a Wayne. My intention was for him to be the long-lost Thomas Wayne Jr. character that Scott Snyder reclaimed in the Owls story arc but I wanted to keep intact all of the accusations of drug abuse and what not that were made on Thomas & Martha Wayne in the actual stories.

As for the big secret Hurt was dangling in front of the villains of Gotham to get them on his bandwagon, the one that would change everything as Electrocutioner stated, well it was all a big lie...a mind game played on the bad guys AND the heroes both. I intended to reveal it as a lie when Hurt was ultimately confronted by either one of the bigger bads or a gathered lot of the minor ones. Hurt was running the game on the idea that promises of wealth and power and control can work wonders on the nefarious while threats of exposure can put the fear of god into those heroes hiding their identity.

The endgame for me was to put Jason Todd into a position to be the Joker to Dick's Batman, and to push JT over that anti-hero edge he had as Red Hood into true villainy...a far cry from what we now see in the New 52 iteration of Jason Todd.


End file.
